. >> i'm a professor of economics at mit, and i helped governor romney develop the massachusetts health care reform, or romneycare. >> narrator: jonathan gruber sat with romney and carefully outlined the problem. >> romney was in management consultant mode. like, "here is a problem." sort of engineering almost mode. >> narrator: romney heard the bad news. >> the state of massachusetts, which he is governor of, is bleeding red ink because people don't have health insurance and they are driving up costs for everyone else, and taxpayers are paying for it. >> narrator: the uninsured were bankrupting the government. but gruber had a solution: all residents should be required to buy insurance. he called it "the individual mandate" >> jonathan gruber says, "if you don't do the mandate, you'll cover x amount of people for x amount of cost. if you do do the mandate, you will cover this many more people, and it will be cheaper." >> narrator: the mandate was an idea first proposed by the conservative heritage foundation. >> this is a very conservative idea. "let's put the onus on individuals, resp